Bloat (Wild Cards)
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Bloat is a character from the Wild Cards series of books. He was created for the books by Stephen Leigh. An adolescent boy transformed by the Wild Card virus into a monstrous Joker, he resembles a tiny human torso atop a massively bloated sluglike body. Introduced in One-Eyed Jacks as Governor of the Rox he comes to prominence and full awareness of his vast powers in Jokertown Shuffle.
Born Theodor Honorlaw, Bloat was a shy, overweight boy with a talent for painting and a fondness for role-playing adventure games such as Dungeons and Dragons. Picked upon by school bullies and ignored by girls he seemed destined to become an accommodating non-entity like his parents. When he was infected by the Wild Card virus his weight problem went wildly out of control, especially in the lower half of his body, eventually obscuring and absorbing his legs. Unable to cope with their son's transformation, much less properly feed or care for him, Bloat's parents finally abandoned him around the time he reached the size of a small bus.
Much of what occurred between that time and Bloat's first appearance as the governor of the Rox is uncertain. Throughout One-Eyed Jacks various characters notice graffiti bearing such slogans as "Bloat Floats" or references to the Rox, a street name for Ellis Island, which had become a hideout for homeless jokers and the jumpers that supplied them with drugs and new bodies. Bloat finally appears towards the end of One-Eyed Jacks as leader of a gang of machine-gun toting jokers and possible mastermind of the jumper reign of terror. It isn't until the beginning of Jokertown Shuffle that Bloat was revealed to be as much a prisoner of his criminal accomplices as he was an asset to their operation.
It seems likely one of the joker or Asian street gangs comprising the Shadow Fists discovered Bloat soon after his parents abandoned him and decided to put his telepathic "wall" to good use. Transported or possibly towed ("Bloat Floats") to Ellis island, Bloat became the psychic security system of the Rox. The larger Bloat grew, the further out his Wall, a telepathic barrier inducing a nearly uncontrollable fear response, extended. Only those with icy self-control or the overwhelming desire to reach the Rox could pass this barrier which seems to almost physically push the intruder away.
While uncertain if he was elected, appointed, or naturally fell into his role as governor of the Rox, Bloat used his mind-reading powers to adjudicate disputes between his joker and jumper "subjects." Immune to the jumper power, he could not be replaced and, having grown too large to escape the island, he had a vested interest in keeping things running smoothly. Eventually, he masterminded the "Jump the Rich" scheme, giving the jumpers direction and purpose rather than letting them blindly rampage through New York. In exchange he received a cut of the loot, including the original tryptych The Temptation of St. Anthony by Hieronymous Bosch. Bloat's obsession with this piece of art grew greater and greater as more and more of the control of the Rox (and the Jump the Rich scheme) slipped from his hands. The island had grown overcrowded and his "loyal" joker followers were hooked on highly addictive rapture and pandering to buy fresh Nat identities from the jumpers. Worse, the jumpers were now under the control of Dr. Tachyon's psychotic grandson Blaise.
In addition to the jumpers, several other human teenagers lived on the Rox, waiting their turn to be initiated into the jumper gang. Among these was a teenage girl named Kelly Jenkins toward whom Bloat had developed a powerful unrequited love. When Blaise captured Dr. Tachyon and jumped him into Kelly's body, Bloat demanded that the Takisian be released. Bloat's messenger returned with photos of the now female Tachyon being stripped and sexually assaulted by "her" grandson. In an attempt to console the imprisoned Tachyon, Bloat began appearing to her in dreams. His obsession with Kelly and the Dungeons and Dragons game cast these dreams in the mold of a romantic fantasy adventure. Tachyon (much to her annoyance) was placed in the role of captive princess and Bloat became the handsome swashbuckler known as the Outcast. However, even in this dream world Bloat was unable to overcome his enemies and, when Tachyon finally became pregnant from multiple rapes, his depression deepened. Growing continually more desperate as her pregnancy advanced, Tachyon begged Bloat to take action and help her escape.
Around this time another figure began appearing in Bloat's dream world, an ice-skating penguin depicted in part of the stolen Bosch tryptych. Representing an aspect of Bloat's subconscious, the penguin jeered at Bloat's seeming helplessness and urged him to use his full potential. This resulted in the creation of the caverns beneath the Rox as the first manifestation of Bloat's energy-to-matter powers. Devising a rescue plan, Bloat used his emerging reality-altering abilities to create a secret passage into Tachyon's cell. The dimwitted, but loyal Joker Peanut was sent to lead Tachyon out through the haunted caverns beneath the Rox. The plan failed and jumpers captured the two fugitives. Bloat was forced to telepathically listen in when Peanut killed himself, thus preventing Blaise from discovering who had really engineered the escape attempt. Tapping into the telepathic powers of the one-eighth Takisian fetus inside her, Tachyon managed to resist Blaise's mind control and keep the secret Peanut had died to protect. In retaliation, Blaise beat and raped Tachyon once more, and - as with Peanut's death - Bloat was forced to share her agony.
Ultimately, Bloat managed to secure Tachyon's release through a deal with the ace vigilante known as Black Shadow. Assisted by the joker girl Chalktalk, Black Shadow had invaded the Rox, intending to assassinate Bloat and dismantle the Jump the Rich operation. Using his telepathy, Bloat realized the vigilante had been under the influence of mind-controlling ace Puppetman for many years and promised to reveal his true identity only if Shadow would rescue Tachyon from her basement cell. Fleeing in a boat provided by Kafka, Black Shadow and Tachyon are separated when the craft was blown apart somewhere in Hudson Bay by National Guard machine guns. Mostly by luck, Tachyon managed to reach the Jersey shore. She and Bloat would not meet again until after the first Battle of the Rox wherein the full potential of Bloat's vast powers was revealed to the world.
Shortly after Tachyon's escape, National Guard units were sent in to clear out the "joker squatters" and other assorted riff-raff infesting Ellis Island. Bloat's expanding psychic wall interfered with shipping lanes and was encroaching on the shore of New Jersey. The assault was well planned, consisting of multiple attacks on several different points along the perimeter of Bloat's wall. The wall itself was overcome by staffing the units solely with fanatical racists who possessed the overwhelming desire to reach the Rox-and, once there, kill everything that moved.
Several boats and helicopters carrying troops managed to break through. Despite a vigorous defense mounted by jokers and jumpers alike, troops penetrated all the way to Bloat's throneroom in the old Administration Building. In the process of capturing the huge immobile joker, gunfire from a National Guardsman destroyed the antique Bosch tryptych. Incited to a murderous rage by the ruined painting, Bloat fully tapped into his reality-warping power to create an army of demons, monsters, and fish-knights.
What followed was a complete rout. Less than half of the National Guardsmen escaped. Some troops were still being hunted down or tortured when Dr. Tachyon returned to the island with help from the Great and Powerful Turtle. Tachyon petitioned Bloat to hand over Blaise only to learn her grandson had fled to parts unknown amid the chaos, taking her stolen body with him. Bloat could only offer the mental image of a seashell (glimpsed when Blaise's mind shields slipped during the attack) as a clue to his location. Tachyon quickly realized that Bloat had interpreted a vision of Tachyon's organic spaceship as a seashell. Realizing Blaise meant to steal her ship and leave her permanently trapped not only upon earth, but in Kelly's pregnant body, Tachyon and the Turtle immediately set off to stop him. Bloat would never see Tachyon again.
Deprived of his mentor/unrequited lover, angered by the recent National Guard attack, and intoxicated by his new level of power, Bloat declared the Rox to be the joker homeland. In a televised broadcast he officially announced the Rox's secession from the United States and its new status as a sovereign nation. This action would have devastating consequences. Under the leadership of General Frank Zappa, a military man rather than a musician in the Wild Cards series, a second invasion was already in the offing. Unknown to Bloat, before she left earth in pursuit of Blaise, Tachyon had been briefly detained by government agents and questioned as to the strength and disposition of the forces upon the Rox. This time, the assault force would be backed not by Nat soldiers, but by an elite team of aces the like of which had never been seen before. Among those recruited to end the Rox crisis once and for all were the aces Carnifex, Legion, the Great and Powerful Turtle, Reflector (the former Snotman), wind-controller Cyclone and his daughter Mistral, Detroit Steel, Black Shadow, Cameo, Jerry Strauss (calling himself the Impressionist to hide his true identity), and others.
When Legion was believed dead, her lover The Great and Powerful Turtle channeled all his rage-fueled power into creating a massive tidal wave, which rolled over the Rox. At the last instant, Bloat pushed his power to its limit and transported the Rox into a pocket universe, where the Jokers could finally live freely.
[edit] Powers and Abilities
Bloat's main power is the ability to project a psychic "wall" around himself, preventing any who are not intensely emotionally driven or strong-willed from entering it. He cannot consciously control or shut off the wall, and it has expanded over time. He can read the minds of those within the radius of his wall, and communicate somewhat with other telepaths or those with sensitive minds.
Bloat later develops a powerful ability to make his fantasies real, transforming the Rox and the land around and under it into a surreal landscape and creating animated beings based in part on the images from the Hieronymous Bosch painting, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and from The Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, and other fantasy sources. He eventually becomes powerful enough to warp the Rox into a parallel universe.
Bloat's body is able to absorb nearly anything organic to fuel its massive growth. The cheapest food available on the Rox is the garbage and feces of the other inhabitants, which the island's sewage system pumps directly into his body through pipes. The concentrated waste he produces is called "bloatblack", which is continually expelled from all parts of his body; cleaning it is the least desired job on the Rox, often reserved as punishment for minor infractions.
Bloat has vast powers, but his greatest weakness is that he is still an insecure child, and is thus easily manipulated or intimidated.
